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Eighty people were arrested, many on alcohol-related offenses, at the annual Halloween block
party near Ohio University, which is a 38 percent decrease from last year’s arrest total.

University police arrested 31 people between 3 p.m. Saturday and 3 a.m. yesterday when the
streets were cleared. Athens police arrested 49 people in addition to 15 others between 3 p.m.
Friday and 3 a.m. Saturday.

Last year, 129 people were cuffed during the party weekend.

Athens County Emergency Medical Services had 34 calls for assistance with 25 people going to the
emergency room. Most calls were alcohol-related.

Athens city police say that, of their 49 arrests, 18 were for underage intoxication and 24 for
disorderly by intoxication.

The party dispersed by 2:30 a.m.

Officials say the size of the crowd was comparable to past years, but the rainy weather and
temperatures in the 40s might have dampened the activities.

The miserable weekend weather proved to be great for the State Highway Patrol, which reported no
problems with Halloween revelers and just 12 drunken-driving arrests.

“The general consensus (was that) it was a lot slower than normal,” said Lt. George Harlow of
the Athens patrol post. “I truly believe the weather kept a lot of people home.”

Preemptive efforts that began Wednesday to control the flow of drugs on Rt. 33 and Rt. 50
into the annual holiday block party yielded just one felony arrest for tampering with evidence.
Harlow said the suspect attempted to eat marijuana before a trooper found it. Otherwise, seven
people were arrested in misdemeanor drug cases, the majority of them on Friday and Saturday, he
said.

Eighteen troopers, three canine units and two plainclothes officers worked during the
Halloween bash, which is known to draw as many as 30,000 students and out-of-towners to Court
Street, Harlow said. They stopped 792 vehicles and issued 347 citations without incident.